Empire of Dirt
by ForParadise
Summary: Silent Hill Homecoming. Takes place after the events of the game. Suggested Alex/Josh, rated M for sexual scenes, swearing, etc. Alex's depressing junkie life after leaving Shepherd's Glen.


Warnings: disturbing scenes, drugs, vomiting, mentions of suicide..

All that depressing stuff!

Written to the song "Hurt" by Nine Inch Nails, because all their stuff makes me think of Silent Hill, and because I'm lame like that.

Takes place after the events of Silent Hill Homecoming.

:)

**xxxxxxxxxx**

_I hurt myself today_

_To see if I still feel_

_I focus on the pain_

_The only thing that's real_

_.  
_

"Aaah fuck.."

The man he was kneeling in front of had his hand on the back of Alex's head, and he moaned deeply as he laced his fingers through the boys messy brown hair.

Alex could feel something small and sharp digging into his left knee. He directed all of his attention on that as the man in front of him began to buck his hips while Alex's mouth moved over him, noticing with discomfort that the hand holding his hair was a little too tight now, and he seemed to be losing control over the situation. His eyes squeezed together tightly and he imagined what the object cutting into his knee was - a piece of glass? he wondered. Or maybe a small nail that had fallen out of the old broken down restroom stall the two of them were occupying at the moment.

The hand in Alex's hair was now holding his head still, and the man in front of him was suddenly thrusting too hard and pushing too deep -

and what Alex thought about instead was the possibility that his knee would probably get infected. It was definitely bleeding by now and the floor was pretty dirty...

And in the back of his mind Alex promised himself that he wouldn't gag this time. Wouldn't pull away and stop everything to vomit in the corner. He wouldn't lose the money he had been promised, not like last time. This time he would get through it.

He registered the man's voice, thick with lust, but didn't care to pick up on the actual words, then suddenly there was a thickness in his throat that made him pull away harshly - his hair getting tugged painfully in the process. He began to cough, and quickly realized he hadn't pulled far enough away because his cheek and chin were now dripping with the man's disgustingly warm come. Even though he had been the one to lure this person into the filthy stall only minutes before, he couldn't stop himself from feeling a seething hatred towards the man. Alex fell back into a sitting position and reached for the thin sheets of toilet paper hanging beside him to wipe his face with.

The man in front of him was now leaning against the wall, taking deep breaths to calm himself as he zipped up his pants and straightened his off white button-down shirt. Alex couldn't bring himself to lift his head, and stared at the man's shoes as he threw the crumpled up tissue paper into the toilet bowl next to him - the one which suddenly seemed a lot closer than it had when he had first come into the stall. Suddenly everything in there was too close, too dank and slick with moisture. The dull light and sharp _buzz_ of the fluorescents above made him feel like every fiber of his being was trying to scream and escape from him.

The man finished fixing himself up, and picked up his coat which had been thrown over the back of the toilet bowl, reaching into it's pocket.

"Uh.. it was twenty, right?.." He said awkwardly. And suddenly he sounded a lot older to Alex than he had at first, and now there was nothing Alex wanted more than to get as far away from this man as possible. All he could do though was spitefully stay silent, and after a moment of standing there - _hopefully embarrassed -_ Alex thought to himself , the man pulled a twenty and a five out of his wallet, dropped it on the ground in front of Alex, and hastily walked out of the stall.

Alex left the money on the ground as he remained there, staring straight ahead at the graffitied wall in front of him, left pant leg ripped at the knee and wet with blood.

And for the first time in a little while, he thought about his brother Josh.

And for the first time in a long while, he hid his face in his hands and cried.

**xxxxx**_  
_

_The needle tears a hole_

_The old familiar sting_

_Try to kill it all away_

_But I remember everything_

.

Alex woke abruptly, disheveling himself from the sweaty bedsheets he was wrapped in and tripping in the dark as he quickly lurched down the hallway and into the small bathroom at the end of it. He threw himself onto the ground and vomited up the few contents of his empty stomach into the toilet bowl. After heaving for a few moments he finally relaxed himself and fell back against the cold ceramic of the bathtub next to him.

It was the same dream he had every fucking night that woke him, the one he had when his high wasn't strong enough to black out his thoughts.

In it were bodies. So many bodies he couldn't tell where one started and the next still-writhing mess began. He was tripping and searching and he had no idea where he was but it was somewhere in Silent Hill - of course - he had never and would never leave that place and god-fucking-forbid he dream of something other than it for once. The nurses too - always the nurses. Their disgusting writhing tumors pulsating under their fleshy over coating. Making it shine in the low light, sickening pops and slurping wet sounds emanating from their every orifice, their faces contorted and scarred beyond any resemblance of a human being... and the smell. The smell of dank, and blood, and fetid air all around -  
Suddenly Alex was throwing himself weakly to the toilet again as he dry heaved into the stained bowl, his mind and body working completely against each other as they often did. Wracked with withdrawals, Alex used the little energy he had to lay down on the cracked tile floor, pulling his knees up as closely to his chest as he could, and wrapped his arms around them tightly.

It took awhile, but as he searched his foggy, aching mind he remembered accepting an offer to go home with someone the night before. He couldn't remember where he had been when he met the person, but he assumed the grime-covered floor he was curled up on now must have been 'home'. He now vaguely remembered the girl - or guy, that part wasn't clear - sleeping in the other room had led him there with the promise of good sex and lots of H. Nothing was clear after that, but he realized the heroin had not been a lot. Not enough for him. But it had never been enough once he was lying on the floor after the high, with his body aching to a degree he could have never dreamed of outside of Silent Hill. There, that pain existed everywhere, and he realized he had dragged a lot of that place back with him. And every time he was coming down, every time the high started to leave him, all the memories of that place came flooding back. And everything from before that place. All of the memories he didn't want anymore but absolutely could not get rid of.

After what seemed like an eternity, he managed to pull himself up off the floor, find and put on his pants which were jumbled by a chair in the small dark bedroom down the hall, and leave wordlessly through the front door without looking back once.

**xxxxx**

_I wear this crown of shit_

_Upon my liar's chair_

_Full of broken thoughts_

_I cannot repair_

.

Alex sat on the aged couch in James Wheeler's one-bedroom apartment, bent forward and clutching his stomach. It was the fourth time he had spent the night there within the last two or three months, and this time, as he did all the other times, he woke up to an empty apartment. Wheeler had been taking countless double shifts since he had moved into his new place, and was hardly ever home. He had gotten a new law-enforcement job in New York, where all the surviving members of Shepherd's Glen now resided, and he was quickly making his way back up to a deputy's position.

When the two of them and Elle had left together, and had decided to move to a new place soon after the events of Shepherd's Glen, they all ended up sharing a two bedroom apartment for the first few months. Alex knew rightly enough that it was his fault the situation hadn't worked out, and when far too many arguments and mainly Alex's piece of the rent not being paid often enough, forced them to separate - Wheeler had promised to be there for either of them no matter what when they needed it. In his eyes they were just kids after all, and he couldn't get past his guilt for what had happened to the town, and how he had never clued in to all of the signs that something had been wrong in that town from the beginning.

And despite three out of the four times Wheeler had come home from a hard days work to find Alex gone, along with his not-so-very hidden bits of money, or even one time an old ring he had received from his father long ago - Wheeler still allowed Alex back into his home without much of an argument. Things were just locked up better, Alex noticed as he - once again - began rifling through papers and personal belongings the man kept on his tables and cabinet.

He knew it was wrong - of course he did. He knew he was completely abusing the seemingly unending amount of civility this man was showing him. But the pain in his stomach, and the ache in his body were far stronger than the feeling of guilt that squeezed at his heart. He made his way into the man's small bedroom, and not long after moving a few things on the dresser around, noticed two neatly placed twenty dollar bills on the stand beside his single bed.

He felt tears swell in his eyes as he hesitated for only a moment, before walking over and snatching them up. He shoved them into the pocket of his ripped jeans. He knew they had been placed there for him to take, and it made him feel somehow worse than actually stealing from the man. Wheeler had known there was no chance Alex would leave with nothing.

He turned and quickly made his way out of the apartment, the pit in his stomach feeling deeper now than it ever had.

**xxxxx**

_Beneath the stains of time_

_The feelings disappear_

_You are someone else_

_I am still right here_

.

It was dark outside, but the building in front of him was small and warm looking, lights glowing as muffled voices drifted out. Alex had been standing there for at least twenty minutes, but his feet hadn't moved.

Every once in a while he would see her blonde hair and glowing smile as she passed by the dirty windows, and every time it made him almost turn and walk away. He wanted to go in and talk to her, make sure that everything was fine in her life. But by the way she moved so fluidly, and the way she held her head high when she spoke to the people around her, made him feel far too wretched to face her.

Of course, the place was filled with people like him - it was a shelter. A place for people with no where else to be to take that first step, to take back their lives and to start making something of themselves.

Elle had started working there only a few weeks after coming to the city, and now - as far as he could tell - she practically ran the place. He had never seen anyone more dedicated to something in his whole life. And she had needed it. She needed to help people. And, Alex figured, had probably needed to see people who were worse off than she was to help her remember that she couldn't give up.

The two of them, once the group separated to find their own places, had moved in together for nearly a month afterwards. Despite everything, she had given him another chance, but it barely lasted a week before everything fell apart. There had definitely been something between the two of them for a long time, especially on Elle's part, but after several attempts at starting something more serious, they pushed away from each other as they always had even before everything that had happened to them in Silent Hill.

He had left her abruptly one night after the worst argument the two had ever had. Elle had been determined to get Alex out of a slump, and she brought up the fact that they had both lost their only sibling, that it affected her as much as him, but that they had to push on together. Alex now regretted his vast overreaction, but on hearing her say that he had snapped. He accused Elle and her sister of not having even half of the connection he and Josh had shared, which in turn brought up a delicate subject between the two - his relationship with his younger brother. Elle had never outright questioned it before, but finally she had allowed all of her feelings to the surface, and accused him of many things - many things of which had been true but which he would never admit to in front of her or anyone else for that matter. He had been so enraged that he stormed out of their small apartment and left her there kneeling on the pale grey carpet, sobbing and alone.

Even though it tore him up every day to know he had left her that way, he still had never gone back to see her again. Every once in a while though he would wander outside her workplace, or pass her while she was on the patio of a cafe, sharing a drink with an attractive young man or woman, laughing and enjoying her night.

And he knew she was fine, that she had moved on.  
That she was winning against the old memories and the old torments that probably haunted her as badly as they did him at one point.

She was beating the town and all it's horrors.

**xxxxx**_  
_

_What have I become?_

_My sweetest friend_

_Everyone I know_

_Goes away in the end_

.

It was only him. Only Alex who couldn't get past everything. Not the town, not the creatures or the hell they had suffered. Not his family, and the loss of the only thing in the world that he had ever actually cared about.

He believed he would never leave that place, no matter how far he went or how much he tried to put it as far behind him as possible. Because Josh never left there. And everything that he was, was because of Josh. He had defined himself through that boy, and everything else he had believed to be a part of him turned out to be a lie.

**xxxxx**

_You could have it all_

_My empire of dirt_

_I will let you down_

_I will make you hurt_

.

Despite everything though, Alex soldiered on. He continued to survive.

Any night he was sober enough to lay awake thinking, he really couldn't figure out why he struggled, why he didn't put an end to the constant nightmares and guilt.

There were things he told himself were the reasons, such as how Elle and Wheeler would feel one day if they were to open the paper or hear on the news of his death. Alex was pretty certain that the death of some homeless junkie wouldn't even be acknowledged, therefore leaving the two of them in the dark for who knows how long, maybe never finding out what had happened to him. He knew the both of them were too good for something like that, and despite the fact that he couldn't find anything in his own life to keep him going, he fell back on that thought when things got too painful.

But when he really considered it, allowed himself to open up to his real thoughts and true emotions for a moment, he knew it still came down to Josh. Everything always did.

His whole life when they were together was focused on the boy, and even now he considered the dead boys feelings. Regardless of everything that happened between them, he was pretty certain Josh wouldn't have wanted him dead. In fact, Alex knew in the end it came down to the fact that he was all Josh ever had. And things hadn't changed. Alex was the only person Josh could ever really open up to, to be a real kid around.

And, in spite of forcing the thoughts out of his head over and over again, he knew that in the back of his mind somewhere he really did believe that Josh could still be alive. Not now, he told himself. Or at least not here. But one day and somewhere he very well could be.

He tried to tell himself that it was just the hopes of a lonely, depressed man. But he nor the others had ever explained the events that took place in the town of Silent Hill, or the magic it harbored.

How was he to be certain that the towns powers stopped at the dead? It had convinced him more than once that his brother had been alive there, and who was to say it wasn't the truth now?

Regardless, he knew that he would one day go back there. He could feel it in the deepest parts of his self, that he wasn't done with that town - and that the town wasn't done with him, either.

He was in no rush. He knew the town, and anything it had to offer him, would wait. He had no ideas as to what it would want in return, or what plans it had in store - but he realized that he really couldn't bring himself to care. He had brought horrors upon himself far worse than anything the town had ever done to him, and he knew that it was a part of him now. Going back was inevitable.

If his little brother was there, still there, who was going to go back to find him, comfort him - if not Alex?

It was only a matter of time. A matter of building his courage. And eliminating any reasons to want to stay away.

Alex realized bitterly that he had done a pretty decent job of that already.

Alex had always had nothing, and yet still he had wanted to give Josh everything. Things hadn't changed.

All he had now to offer was the small chance of ever finding him again. And that was what kept Alex going.

**xxxxx**_  
_

_If I could start again_

_A million miles away_

_I would keep myself_

___I would find a way_

_.  
_

**xxxxxxxxxx**_  
_

_.  
_

_**Hey pig**_

_**yeah you**_

_**Hey big piggy pig, big pig**_

_**all of my fears came true**_

.

I had to write this.


End file.
